After the fall
by bloodstaindstoat
Summary: After everything’s come crashing down Carl angsts. CarlPreston. Angterrific, HurtComfort, Slash. Please R&R! It's what fuels mah blood!


Title: After the Fall

Fandom: King Kong

Disclaimer: Don't own anything. Including the title. Which I totally ganked from a Trans-Siberian song on their Beethoven's Last Night album. If you haven't heard it, you NEED to. The power of Stoat compels thee. Listen by whatever means necessary.

Paring: Carl/Preston

Summary: After everything's come crashing down Carl angsts.

A/N: Angterrific, Hurt/Comfort, Slash, eventual smut

Screaming. Panic. Eyes. Those pleading eyes. The lips said move, 'forget me' but the eyes screamed 'Save Me.' They pleaded. Shone with desperation. And then, demonic eyes flashed. Blood and sun gleamed unrelentingly off monstrous fangs. An unimaginably inhuman screech. It flayed his innards and filled his senses and he was frozen. Paralyzed. Asphyxiated. Almost numb. Almost, save for the twisting, burning guilt tearing his gut asunder. The valley darkened, and he was alone. Almost floating in dark. Almost adrift in nothingness. Almost. But water dripped off jutting unseen edges and echoed, bringing him back from languor. Almost gone. But fires and smoke leapt up. They kept him from slipping away. They silhouetted the rocks and his surroundings. Savage chanting assaulted his ears. And then a shrill female scream. It twisted his guts into unfathomable knots, made his skin shrivel and crawl in the most unpleasant of ways. Wanting to turn, wanting to run, wanting to get the hell out of there with every fiber of his being, he was however unable to resist the direction his feet took him towards. His fingers clutched at the biting, jagged edges of an opening. He peered through, gazing on with horror and painfully hitched breath. He watched the lurid sight lay before him as the crew, _his_ crew, was tortured to death. The native's eyes flashed bloody red from the corners of his vision and the mangled screams of the others erupted into a symphony, no, a cacophony of Carl's guilt.

He blinked furiously. Only after minutes of panting, wide-eyed, and clutching at his limbs with fervor, did the familiar surroundings of the hotel room fade into sight. The horrendous visions were gone, for now. The beasties receded to the depths of his dreams. The shrieks and screeches withdrawn to his tortured psyche, but guilt still clawed unmercifully at his viscera. Carl clutched desperately at his still-heaving chest, attempting to get a grip on reality.

The cheap bed squeaked in protest, complementing Carl's groan, as he got up and groggily made his way to the washroom. His breath was still coming in pants even after he'd recognized the nightmare as such.

It wasn't unfamiliar. It differed little each night. Sometimes, quite often in fact, it was he being offered up to the great ape. Fires would be licking all around him and illuminating all. Almost all. Just enough that he'd see the silhouette of the beast. Shining off its great expressive uncomprehending eyes. Only, it wasn't a stupid beast. He knew that. It would growl and scream and roar with unmatched fury as it ripped him limb from limb. It knew what he'd done. It _knew _his unforgivable sins. It would disembowel him. Rip his body bit by bit into something not resembling human by the farthest stretch of the imagination. And the natives would cheer it on. And his crew would too. They cheered and jeered and blamed him for those that had fallen. And they were there too. They were dead, and they blamed him for it. Rightfully so.

They always blamed him. And Carl believed them. What else _could _he believe? That it was their carelessness? That it was the beast's ferocity? That it wasn't _entirely _his bloody fault they were anywhere near the island in the first place. Carl heaved a breathy sigh as he gazed at the worn form peering back at him through sunken red-tinged eyes. The grime and filth that coated his reflection couldn't begin to describe the pain, gore, and mire he felt permeated to the core of his person. His throat felt dry and scratchy as he tried to swallow back bile that had crept up his throat. Would these screams haunt him forever? Would he be deserving of the silence in their absence?

He didn't know. He needed to know. A latent scream of frustration pawed at the back of his throat. He _needed_ to know.

Throwing on some clothes, haphazardly, he absently grabbed a coat and headed out the door. He felt his feet hit the floor as he moved forward, but only in the most detached sense. His body seemed disconnected. Although he still controlled its motions, his mind was far away, focusing on his demons and almost unattainable redemption. It seemed almost unattainable. Almost. A treacherous shred of hope told him differently. It also said, it was not for him to decide. He couldn't forgive himself. He needed someone else to, first. He needed retribution. It wouldn't be kind words. Not in the farthest fathoming of his mind could he conceive soft-spoken comfort for his misdeeds. The venture. The crew. The ape. Never consolation. A few hurled insults and a glare, maybe a punch and gut-busting kick, before relenting admission of these past tragedies being fate's cruel hand brought by his mistake. But mistakes are human nature. So forgiveness would be given. That was his high hope. A half-hope at best, truth be told. Please don't let the screams be right. Please don't let them be the truth.

It was half-hope because he half-believed the voices. The hope he had was merely a shred, very nearly, merely nothing. A whisper, a flicker of light in the pit of self-blame he'd been living in. If one could call it living.

His head looked up and his eyes saw the grimy building his feet had taken him to. His mind acknowledged it as Preston's current living residence. His throat tightened and his stomach threatened an upheaval. Carl stumbled forward and entered the building. Forcing his body to climb flight after flight of stairs he finally arrived at the door he knew to be Preston's. Careening forwards, he caught himself on the door's frame. His body swayed dangerously and his mind lurched with the effort of not letting the body crumble down into an unconscious heap. With great effort he raised one arm and hammered on the decrepit door before succumbing to his body's tiredness. It collapsed into an undignified heap. Consciousness was fleeting. Carl felt bile burn the back of his throat. He saw the door swing open before him through glazed, darkening eyes. As his senses faded to black he heard a worried voice in the background cry out, "Oh God! Carl!" Even in fleeting consciousness, the spoken voice was drowned out by the screams of his nightmares.


End file.
